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Hemisphere Integration Now

AN ADDRESS
by
HARRY F. GUGGENHEIM
Former American Ambassador to Cuba

at the
CONFERENCE ON THE CARIBBEAN
AT MID-CENTURY


17,73
G942h


December 8, z950
UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA
















University
of loritha
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tye ($ift of
University of Florida
President's Office










Hemisphere Integration Now


AN ADDRESS

by
ft I
HARRY F. GUGGENHEIM
Former AmericanAmbassador to Cuba
1 -^^


University of Florida Press
Gainesville
'951













Copyright 1951 by the University of Florida


Printed in the United States of America by
The Record Press, Incorporated, of St. Augustine, Florida











Hemisphere Integration Now


RESIDENT MILLER has honored me with an invita-
tion to address you on a general subject in the
relations between the United States and Latin
America. I chose for the specific subject of my address,
"Hemisphere Integration Now."
I shall attempt to convince you that a foreign policy
for the United States, which includes the political, eco-
nomic, and military integration-of this Hemisphere, is es-
sential to our well-being, and possibly even our survival,
as a free nation.
The integration of the Western Hemisphere now is not
suggested as a policy of "isolationism" or insulation from
the rest of the world, or as a substitute for the role that
we should play, say, in the North Atlantic Pact or the
movement for a United Europe. It is an anchor that we
should let go now to windward, in the best holding ground,
before the storm breaks.
I speak as a citizen of the United States without office,
and as a seeker of truth. My thesis rests on the following
premises:

i. War is bestial and inhuman. It is a curse on the
people of the world. There is, however, a greater curse,
and that is national enslavement, which is the danger from
a lost war.
2. Nationalist Conrmunism as presently practiced by the
Politburo of Soviet Russia is an international conspiracy
to overthrow non-Communist governments throughout the






2 The Caribbean at Mid-Century
world. Stalin rigidly follows the policy of Lenin, who pro-
claimed: "We are living not merely in a state but in a
system of states, and the existence of the Soviet Republic
side by side with imperialist states for a long time is un-
thinkable. One or the other must triumph in the end. And
before that end supervenes a series of frightful collisions
between the Soviet Republic and the bourgeois states will
be inevitable."
Should Soviet Russia be successful in this conspiracy,
sovereign states will disappear under the dictatorship of
Russia's Imperialist Politburo.
3. The transition from the sea age of transportation to
the air age has now developed to a stage where all nations
are susceptible to attack and many to destruction from the
air. As Hanson W. Baldwin, of The New York Times, has
said: "Frightful agents of destruction have conferred upon
the offense a great and growing lead over the defense, and
have altered-particularly the coming intercontinental and
transworld missiles-all American strategic concepts."
4. Neutrality is a luxury that weak states can only in-
dulge in with the approval of strong states. In recent times
the tragic fate of Belgium, Holland, and Denmark are
such concise and clear examples of frustrated neutrality
that the multiplication of examples seems unnecessary. Only
the defeat of the Axis powers saved them as sovereign
states.
5. The United Nations and the Organization of Amer-
ican States are aids, but not yet substitutes for foreign
policy. They are organizations for immediate consultation
in international emergencies, where action can be taken
quickly against threats to the peace and aggression. They
are forums where foreign policy can be examined, debated
and developed, and where international harmony and human
well-being can with good will be promoted.





Hemisphere Integration Now 3
But until the strong have reached a state of enlighten-
ment in which they are willing to temper strength with
reason and justice, there can be little hope for substituting
the United Nations and Organization of American States
for foreign policy. And surely before justice becomes ac-
ceptable to the strong, they will require assurance that
justice will not be replaced by self-interest of the numeri-
cally greater votes of the weak.
Vishinsky, who has used the forum of the United Nations
so often to create ill rather than good will, has made quite
clear the power position of Russia. He has realistically
called attention to the fact that-veto, or no veto-the
great powers now enjoy and will continue to enjoy the
power to break the peace.

Franklin D. Roosevelt warned us in 1939 that our
frontiers were on the Rhine. Europe still may be our first
line of defense, but this Hemisphere is our last line of
defense. It is our inner citadel, and it must be made im-
pregnable.
The age of the air has made this citadel vulnerable. In
World Wars I and II we succeeded in keeping the lands
of this Hemisphere free from attack. That was only be-
cause we were in a transition period from the sea age to
the air age.
Now we can no longer expect to keep this Hemisphere
from assault by air. We must prepare for its defense now
before it is too late. We cannot do so by sketchy, or even by
elaborate, plans for action in case war is brought to us. We
should not wait for some military disaster to galvanize the
Inter-American Defense Board into action.
The present lack of cohesion of the American States is
due, in the first instance, to the isolationist foreign policy
of the United States in the past. This age-long policy was






4 The Caribbean at Mid-Century
altered when the United States entered World War I.
After it, the disillusioned people of the United States re-
affirmed the general policy of isolationism until World War
II, even though, through the Good Neighbor Policy, we
recognized the common interests of this Hemisphere. Since
then, our foreign policy has made a complete reversal of
course, and we are headed away from the territorial bor-
ders of the United States in every direction of the compass.
But, in our haste to accept world responsibility and
assume world leadership, we have neglected our nearest
neighbors in the Americas. Isolationism has kept us from
them in the past, and our new foreign policy, which plum-
mets us into Europe and Asia, keeps us from them now.

II

Before elaborating on the proposal to integrate this
Hemisphere, it is essential to examine briefly the present
over-all foreign policy of the United States.
In this examination, we should keep constantly before us
our objective-the objective of all foreign policy. The first
purpose of any such policy is to maintain our integrity as
a sovereign power. The second is, with enlightenment and
consideration of others, to promote our national interests.
Survival is simple to understand, since it is the first law of
nature; but our "national interests," the well-being and
progress of 150 million people, are sometimes difficult to
assess.
What is the new foreign policy that has been developing
since the dose of World War II? It is vague, confusing,
and headed in three different directions at the same time:

I. We are attempting to assume, in a measure, the old
role of Great Britain in maintaining the balance of power






Hemisphere Integration Now 5
in Europe and in the protection of British trade routes in
the Mediterranean and Near East. The clearest example
of this comes from Greece. "Early in 1947," we
are informed by Foster Dulles, the British Government
"privately told our government that it felt unable to go
on alone in Greece; that, unless the United States was pre-
pared to help out, it would withdraw, with the probable
result that Greece would fall, Turkey would be encircled,
and the entire Eastern Mediterranean and Near East would
fall under Soviet Communist domination." We stepped
into the breach and the British moved out.
2. The second course of our foreign policy flowed from
the first. When we assumed Great Britain's place in Greece,
President Truman enunciated his doctrine in which he said,
in part: "I believe it must be the policy of the United States
to support free peoples who are resisting attempted subjuga-
tion by armed minorities or by outside pressures. . ."
This is the policy of containing Russia. It was defined by
George F. Kennan, of the American Foreign Service, in a
lecture at the National War College in January, 1947. He
considered Russia's political action as "a fluid stream which
moves constantly wherever it is permitted to move. If it
finds unassailable barriers in its path, it accepts these
philosophically and accommodates itself to them . .
Soviet pressure against the free institutions of the Western
World is something that can be contained by the adroit and
vigilant application of counter force."
3. There is a third part of our foreign policy. which
Edgar Mowrer has called the "moralistic fallacy." "This
is the belief," he says, "that in its dealings with foreign
states or groups, the United States should be guided by the
degree to which said states or groups conform internally
to American standards." In other words, we are attempting
to reform the world. Mowrer, describing how it worked in






6 The Caribbean at Mid-Century
China, came to the conclusion that our diplomats were
more eager to promote what they called "the revolt of
Asia" than to secure a China impervious to Russian in-
fluence.
The first part of our foreign policy, an attempt to main-
tain the balance of power in Europe, is logical.
We abandoned isolationism as a policy just before World
War II because we feared that the Axis powers would
succeed in subjugating the whole world. We preferred to
fight on foreign soil rather than at home. We accepted the
concept of the air age that our defense frontiers had moved
from the Atlantic and Pacific coasts to the Rhine, North
Africa, and Okinawa. So today, with our frontiers still on
the Rhine, the balance of power in Europe is of vital
importance to us.
The North Atlantic Pact, and the movement for a
United Europe, stand in the way of Russian aggression.
The United States has taken the leadership in the North
Atlantic Pact. It is unfortunate, in my opinion, that this
leadership is not where it traditionally belongs-with Eng-
land and France. We can only help Europe; we cannot save
her from Russian ideology or force. If Europe no longer
has the will to make desperate and supreme efforts to pre-
serve the essential freedoms the democratic world has
cherished, she will succumb to the tyrants of Russia, no
matter what we may try to do.
In 1951, we shall perhaps find out whether Western
Europe is willing and able to make available the necessary
manpower. There are disturbing rumors that many Euro-
peans are succumbing to the false propaganda that the
present world crisis is a battle between Russian and United
States imperialism. How pleasant it would be to remain
neutral, they think. But neutrality, in the air age, is utterly
impossible.






Hemisphere Integration Now 7
The second part of our foreign policy is the Truman
Doctrine-which is physically and financially beyond our
abilities, and morally wrong in its implied righteousness.
Words such as "free peoples," "attempted subjugation,"
and "outside pressures" can be interpreted however the
President sees fit, and this is a very grave danger. We
Americans have proven beyond cavil our willingness to
help weak or distressed nations, but the Truman Doctrine
commits us to a world-wide policy of assistance, financial
or military, on a scale we cannot possibly support.
The third course of our foreign policy, in which we re-
quire other states to conform to United States standards if
they would have relations with us, is inevitably doomed to
failure in the future as it has so notably failed in the past
in dealing with such diverse ideologies as those of Spain,
the Argentine, Guatemala, and China. The reduction ad
absurdum of this doctrine would be to have no relations
with any states unwilling to reform themselves in our
own image of white, male, Anglo-Saxon democratic Pro-
testant perfection.
As national interests are a basic consideration in foreign
policy, we must determine where they lie.
There is a lack of understanding of our long-distance
economic goals. We drift into situations and international
political crises which may be quite contrary to our national
interests. For example, during the crisis between Arabs
and Jews over Israel, our policy shifted from quarter to
quarter like a weathervane in a storm. At that time, the
public had an intimation for the first time that oil in the
Middle East was one of the considerations of our foreign
policy. How vital are these oil fields to us? Is a keystone
of our foreign policy to prevent Russia's access to the oil
reserves of the Middle East? If such a policy is necessary
to our survival and national interests, and within the power






8 The Caribbean at Mid-Century
of our resources, the public should be informed and made
ready to approve such a policy. If this is to be a part of our
foreign policy, let it be cear-cut; not involved, confused,
and hindered by other actions, unless they are useful to
our objective. Britain's success in her period of growth was
greatly aided by her cear knowledge of what she wanted,
and often by her quite frank methods of achieving it.
Obviously, the interests that Britain had in the protection
of trade routes in the Mediterranean and Near East are
not identical with ours. Great Britain's culture, power, and
fabulous riches followed her policy in that direction. But
the United States may only exhaust her strength and re-
sources in the protection of interests that are of little or
no value to her.
We no longer believe that our national interests can best
be served by an overbearing, selfish nationalism. In the
principle of Point Four, President Truman has proposed
a plan for us to help less advanced nations to increase their
productivity and well-being.
Enlightened self-interest should urge the implementa-
tion of Point Four, but only with careful planning and
under adequate safeguards. Are resources for this purpose
to be prodigally expended for all peoples over the earth
who need our aid? Obviously, even our great wealth could
not stand such a strain. Yet at the present time, Point Four
is an instrument of the Department of State, to be bar-
tered for day-to-day diplomatic needs.
Our foreign policy is muddled because our national in-
terests are obscure. Furthermore, while we are committing
ourselves to financial and military aid all over the world,
we do not know whether our resources are great enough
for our commitments.
What we require is a new, bipartisan agency composed
of the executive and legislative branches of government,






Hemisphere Integration Now 9
coordinated with the State Department, to carry on a con-
tinuous appraisal of our national interests and national re-
sources. Instead, in this time of crisis, we are staggering
along with fifty-nine major Government departments and
agencies, of which forty-six have interests in the field of
foreign affairs. There are thirty-two interdepartmental
committees coordinating work. It is an impossible and un-
workable arrangement.
Minus some over-all coordinating body, our foreign
policy is bound to remain unrealistic and illogical. At a
moment in history when the United States must undertake,
through foreign policy, to lead the world away from wars
toward peace, we have not set a course that even our own
people can follow with understanding and approval.

III
The United States has a last line of defense in this
Hemisphere to which she will be forced back if our first
line of defense in Europe fails. This line consists of our
neighboring American states.
To disregard this line of defense and neglect the Amer-
icas may be our greatest national folly. Neglect can be
traced in the past, as mentioned before, to our old traditional
policy of isolationism, and since World War II to the lack
of a comprehensive truly American foreign policy to take
the place of isolationism.
Perhaps lack of consideration of the defense of this
Hemisphere is also partly due to the past teachings of
geopoliticans, of whom Professor Spykman, writing in the
midst of World War II, was a leading exponent. He con-
cluded:
"South America beyond the Equator can be reached only
by sea. This applies not only to the United States but also






xo The Caribbean at Mid-Century
to the republics of Colombia and Venezuela, which lack ade-
quate land communication with their southern neighbors.
The main area of the southern continent will continue to
function in American foreign policy not in terms of a con-
tinental neighbor but in terms of overseas territory."

The airplane has already almost broken down this bar-
rier. There is little doubt that it will soon be completely
eliminated, and with it this misconception of what direction
our foreign policy ought to take.
So let us examine our foreign policy in Latin America
now, with the object of improving it for the greater se-
curity and national interests of the United States and all
of the other states in this Hemisphere.
Our policy toward Latin America has been uncertain
and vacillating. We have gone through periods of Mani-
fest Destiny, Imperialism, The Big Stick, Dollar Diplomacy,
a Tutorial Policy, and an Intervention Policy. Finally,
under President Hoover a non-intervention policy was
practiced which Franklin D. Roosevelt put into words, ex-
panded, and sold as the Good Neighbor Policy. The present
administration adheres to the letter of the Good Neighbor
Policy, but has no kinship with it in spirit. There is an
apathy toward Latin America. As a result, we no longer
enjoy the warm relationships built up during the admin-
istration of Franklin D. Roosevelt.
What course should our policy in Latin America take?
I repeat that it should be directed toward the most com-
plete political, economic, and military integration among
all the states in this Hemisphere that can be effected by
diplomacy. We should make this our cornerstone of for-
eign policy, because this Hemisphere is our last line of
defense, and within it are deep national interests which
have been neglected. Those far-off fields of Europe have






Hemisphere Integration Now Ix
seemed so much greener that we have overlooked the ones
at home, cose to our sight.
Latin America is an undeveloped and excellent area for
essential industry. It is our only source of many strategic
and critical materials. Of the twelve materials listed as
strategic in 1943, eleven--copper, manganese, chromium,
tungsten, tin, antimony, platinum, mercury, iodine, sodium
nitrate, and bauxite-are available in Latin America. In
addition, Latin America also produces oil, iron ore, fibres,
foodstuffs, drugs, woods, natural rubber, meats, hides, and
wool.
The volume of our trade with Latin America is indicated
by one very revealing set of figures: From July I, 1940,
to July I, 1945, non-military agencies of the United States
Government purchased $2,360,000,000 in commodities from
Latin America out of a total of $4,387,000,000 spent for
commodities throughout the world. Since the last war, more
than one-third of our merchandise imports have come from
Latin America.
The population of the United States will reach its peak
about 1970 according to students of population trends.
Latin America, with a present population equal to our own,
will still be growing in 1970. It may well outgrow the
Russians, particularly if we are able, by the right sort of
assistance, to raise Latin American standards of public
health to match our own.
Potential industry, population, strategic materials, and
food are all here in our own Hemisphere, for the survival
of all of us, if we have the wit and the will to use them.
Up to now, unfortunately, we have not shown an evidence
of such acumen.
Take the case of Chile, one of many such. Between April,
1948, and July, 1950, we spent about ten billion dollars
under the Marshall Plan to save western Europe from






12 The Caribbean at Mid-Century
Communism. Meanwhile, what is happening in Latin
America? S. Cole Blasier, writing in the Political Science
Quarterly for September, 1950, says:

"Since the formation of the Chilean Popular Front in
1936, the Communists have played a crucial role in the
political life of Chile. Communists have come closer there
than anywhere else in the Western Hemisphere to con-
trolling a national government."

Chile produces copper and sodium nitrate in quantity-
both vital strategic materials. She has almost 30 per cent
of the world's copper reserves, and produces approximate-
ly 8 per cent of the nitrogen consumed by the world in the
form of sodium nitrate.
In view of her importance to us, what has our diplo-
matic policy been toward Chile? Regrettably, one of friend-
ly apathy-just as it has toward the rest of Latin America.
Yet Chile, right now, like much of the world, is suffering
from the destroying germ of inflation. Like so many other
countries in Latin America, her social soil is fertile for
Communist infiltration. Must our foreign policy only be
formed when an emergency arises in an attempt to save
us from imminent peril? Can we not continuously so con-
duct our foreign affairs as to prevent disaster?
The responsible heads of the Chilean State are aware of
the menace of Communism. The people, if informed, can
be relied on to resist it. But the Communists are skillful.
They rely on economic distress and on American indiffer-
ence to help them get their way. If we let Chile lapse into
confusion through our own neglectfulness, then it is pos-
sible that Communists could take over the state. If Chile
should then agree to send her copper and nitrates to Russia
by commercial treaty, what would be the policy of our De-






Hemisphere Integration Now 13
apartment of State? We must never allow ourselves to be
confronted by such a dilemma. We must bind Chile and
all Latin American countries so closely to us that Com-
munism will cease to be a threat.
We need sugar from Cuba, oil and iron ore from Vene-
zuela, coffee from Brazil, tin and tungsten from Bolivia,
copper, lead, and zinc from Mexico, hides and tungsten
from the Argentine, vanadium from Peru, and platinum
from Colombia. In emergencies, we may have to rely on
Latin America for rubber, hemp, cocoa, tung oil, and
quinine.
How can we implement the integration of this Hemi-
sphere? To begin with, we must have a different state of
mind. We should desire it, because we require it. The world
has become a disturbing and grim place to live in. There is
hope, and perhaps even happiness and example for the world,
in this proposed regional alliance of the peoples of this
Hemisphere.
The United States can, in my opinion, bring about inte-
gration in three ways: by diplomacy, economic union, and
military alliances.
First, by diplomacy: We must acknowledge the impor-
tance of good relations between the United States and the
other states within this Hemisphere. The Division of Latin
American Affairs within our Department of State should
be raised in dignity and expanded in organization, to cope
with the diverse problems so vital to all the Americas.
Our diplomacy in Latin America requires the highest
degree of personal representation in our various missions.
In the past, in numerous instances, it has been disgracefully
poor. We have been represented by men unqualified to
carry out their assignments, often unable to speak the
language of the country to which they have been accredited.
They have sometimes been chosen from private life wholly






14 The Caribbean at Mid-Century
because of some financial contribution or at other times for
some political contribution to the party in power. Before
the end of World War II they were often inefficient for-
eign service officers, shunted into some Latin American state
to get them out of the way. They have sometimes been
ignorant and futile men. They have often been completely
lacking in the culture, personal sympathy, and understand-
ing so necessary in our relations with sensitive peoples sprung
from Latin civilization. On the other hand, there has been
progress in recent years, and we have also been represented
and are being represented by men of the greatest distinction
and competence in the foreign service. However, to accom-
plish our great aims now in this Hemisphere, we must sweep
the Embassies and Legations of Latin America dean of
misfits and incompetents.
Our diplomacy in Latin America should be rigidly di-
rected to respect the sovereignty of all the states of this
Hemisphere. Sovereignty can be respected only by strict
adherence to the policy of non-intervention, including di-
rect action or intrigue.
On September 12, 1950, there were reported two ex-
amples of United States intervention by meddling in
distantly separated parts of the world. One United States
envoy at Teheran openly preached land reform. Another
publicly spoke in Montevideo on the American way of life
and denounced the Third Position of Peron. Both of these
meddling incidents took place during national election cam-
paigns.
The internal affairs of the recognized sovereign states of
this Hemisphere may be the cause of regret on the part of
the United States, but they should never be the cause of
intervention. Our "policy of non-intervention" in Latin
America must not be undermined by the traditional Ameri-
can desire to reform.






Hemisphere Integration Now 15
Finally, in our diplomacy, we should return to our
ancient policy of recognition of sovereign states with abso-
lute impartiality, not as a weapon to force reform. Accord-
ing to that policy, "(I) the new regime must appear to
have control of the governmental machinery of state; (2)
it must have the assent of the people without 'substantial
resistance to its authority'; and (3) it must be in a position
to fulfill all its international obligations and responsibilities."
At the present time we are in the inconsistent position of
carrying on full diplomatic relations with Communist Rus-
sia, Socialist England, and several dictators in Latin Amer-
ica-but we draw the line at dictatorship in Spain. A short
time ago we withheld recognition of Peron because we dis-
approved of his Third Position in the Argentine. We have
had ambassadors to the Argentine on the one hand openly
condemning, and others on the other hand slyly approving
the political philosophy of the President of that sovereign
state. This is not properly a function of a foreign ambassa-
dor. It is a form of intervention that should be banished
from our diplomacy in this Hemisphere.
The interpretation of the above policy on recognition
allows much room for discussion and disagreement. This
is inevitable in diplomatic relations. However, if the policy
is consistently adhered to in good faith, a pattern will even-
tually be woven which those seeking truth will acknowledge
as fair, even if the results are not agreeable to everyone.
If we are not to intervene or meddle in the internal af-
fairs of the Latin American states, neither can we tolerate
intervention in this Hemisphere by outside states-the basic
policy of the Monroe Doctrine.
Russian intervention by intrigue to spread Communism
should be forestalled by rigid security measures and by
the exchange of information between the agencies of the
various nations entrusted with the task of maintaining do-






z6 The Caribbean at Mid-Century
mestic tranquility. We may dislike Socialism, or Dictator-
ships, or the Third Position, but while they remain political
philosophies confined to the internal policies of sovereign
states, we should learn to live peacefully with them.
Second: We must bind together the economic resources
of this Hemisphere to protect all of us against military or
economic aggression. The hope of world free economies
is not being realized. On the contrary, there are increasing
regional and international preference agreements, cartels,
exchange controls, export quotas, and tariffs. We should be
prepared and eager in this Hemisphere to go as far as the
rest of the world in breaking down all the bars to a free
economy. In fact, we should lead wherever possible, but
we must protect ourselves so long as restrictions are a part
of the world economic order.
Specifically I propose that the United States, by bilateral
agreements with other states of this Hemisphere and through
tariff adjustments, make possible now the sale of at least
part of their surplus exportable raw products and eventually
all of the surplus that we can consume.
The United States must re-examine its tariffs on the im-
portation of raw products from this Hemisphere and make
concessions to further the end of Hemisphere integration.
We have made and are making outright gifts of colossal
magnitude in the Eastern Hemisphere to strengthen our
frontiers in Europe. By reduction of tariffs on certain raw
products from states of this Hemisphere, we can strengthen
our last line of defense. Of course, some of these products
will compete with our own. That is a small price to pay,
particularly since it will reduce our cost of living and in
the long run should greatly expand our exports to the other
states of this Hemisphere.
Since 1927 we have excluded Argentine beef from the
United States. This is one example among others of our






Hemisphere Integration Now 17
inept policy in the Argentine, and also of outstanding folly
in Hemispheric policy. While we refuse to purchase beef
from the Argentine to protect our cattle growers, we are
giving billions of dollars annually to Great Britain, among
other things, to purchase most of her beef from the Ar-
gentine. The good will which we feel we cannot afford to
buy from the Argentine, in order to protect our cattle raisers,
England purchases with our money. Thus it is plain that we
need a new approach to the economic problems of this
Hemisphere.
We must not negotiate at arms length as strangers, but
as partners in a cause for common survival and well-being.
Our objective should be to break down all trade barriers in
this Hemisphere so that, eventually, there will be the same
free movement of goods among the states of this Hemisphere
as there now is among the states of the United States. This
will require us to sacrifice some vested interests; it will re-
quire some other states in the Hemisphere to sacrifice some
of the momentary advantages of a narrow nationalism. In
the greater interest of Hemispheric integration, we should
assist the industrialization of Latin America whenever it
seems economically sound.
I further propose that the capital of the Export-Import
Bank be increased so that economically sound enterprises in
this Hemisphere can be stimulated and expanded. Here
again is indicated the need of an agency of government able
to appraise our over-all, long-range national interests and
point out to what extent enterprise should be stimulated
in this Hemisphere or elsewhere.
The proposed action toward economic integration on the
part of the United States would help to stabilize the economy
of Latin America. It would help to destroy the germ of in-
flation and curb the spread of Communism. It would pro-






18 The Caribbean at Mid-Century
vide the first articles for a partnership of the Americas
through a real community of interests.
Where we have failed by full-dress conference, innocuous
political treaties, cultural interchanges, and uncertain and
intermittent financial and technical aid, we can succeed by
solving the basic economic problems of Latin America at
slight immediate sacrifice and with much eventual benefit
for the United States. It might well be the initial step lead-
ing in the distant future to a United States of the Americas,
and beyond that to the far-off hope of World Government.
Third: We must forge the most comprehensive kind of
military alliance for the protection of the countries of this
Hemisphere. Results from our foreign policy in the East-
ern Hemisphere, carried on at colossal sacrifice, are still
uncertain. But leadership in a new foreign policy for the
Western Hemisphere can achieve success at comparatively
little sacrifice.
The experience of World War II should be a cear indi-
cation of our need for action while there is still time to take
action. Following the attack on Pearl Harbor, the Rio de
Janeiro Conference was hastily called in an attempt to bring
about Latin American solidarity in the war against the Axis.
German activity in Latin America made this difficult in
fact, as it later proved, impossible. At the conference Sum-
ner Welles stated:

". .the security of three hundred millions of people
who inhabit the Western Hemisphere and the independence
of each of the countries here represented will be determined
by whether the American nations stand together in this hour
of peril, or whether they stand apart from one another."

However, the United States Navy and War Departments
had informed Welles early in January, 1942, before the







Hemisphere Integration Now 19
Conference, that a declaration of war by all the American
nations, most of which were totally unprepared, would place
the burden of defending the entire area from the Canadian
border to Cape Horn on the United States at a time when
this nation might have some difficulty defending its own
shores.
In spite of this grave experience, the policy for military
integration has been so weakly pursued that today, eight
years after the Rio Conference which was called with great
anxiety, we are pitifully ill prepared to defend this Hemi-
sphere.
Within the last month, events in Korea have reached a
state of crisis. A week ago President Truman stated: "We
are fighting in Korea for our national security and sur-
vival."
Does this mean that we have no alternative other than
throwing all our resources into the struggle in Asia? The
time is late but perhaps not too late even now to reassess
our foreign policy and change its course. Great Britain and
France have dearly indicated their belief that we should
do so, at least so far as Asia is concerned.
The United States in her present position of world power
requires and deserves a foreign policy nearly thought
through and defined for our preservation and the promotion
of our true national interests. We must evolve from our
present method of making policy to meet current crises.
Foreign policy is not like a grain crop that is sown in the
spring and harvested in the summer; it is like an orchard
that must be carefully guarded and cultivated for years
before it can bear good fruit. I feel certain that a careful
reassessment of our foreign policy will reveal that our great
national interests lie in this Hemisphere.






The Caribbean at Mid-Century


IV
Pan Americanism, or at least what has been called a
"Pan American feeling" goes back as far as 1741, when
rebellious Spaniards asked for English help.
In the Nineteenth Century, Bolivar gave the great weight
of his deeds and name to Pan Americanism. . the
ideal of American unity appealed to men of vision in both
North and South America during the first decade or two
of the nineteenth century," says the historian Lockey.
Mariano Moreno, the leading light of the Buenos Aires
revolutionary "junta" was against it, and his opposition did
much to shape Argentine diplomacy down to the present
day. Moreno felt that distances were too great and
problems and interests too diverse to allow successful co-
operation.
The United States has not desired and so has not made
any serious attempts to integrate this Hemisphere. The
Argentine has never had an interest in following the United
States through its tortuous maze of foreign policy in Latin
America and indeed, more often than not, the Argentine
has had every interest in blocking the objectives of the
United States.
Of Moreno's original objections, the basic one of dis-
tance is no longer valid. Then Buenos Aires was about
twenty-four days removed in travel time from Wash-
ington. Today the time is about twenty-four hours. In the
near future the time will be cut in half. In the not distant
future, when true rocket transportation becomes practicable,
Washington will be about two hours removed from Buenos
Aires. Moreno's other objection-that interests were too
diverse-still keeps the Argentine and the United States
apart and to a lesser degree the other states of this Hemi-
sphere.






Hemisphere Integration Now 21
Today the national interests of the states of this
Hemisphere are naturally linked together. We are in mor-
tal peril unless we bind ourselves together for mutual pro-
tection. Mistakes of the past, antagonisms arising from
them, our habits of thought based on the Eighteenth, Nine-
teenth, and first half of the Twentieth Century world, make
it difficult for both North and Latin Americans to accept
the initial sacrifices that Hemispheric integration is bound
to entail. However, "when the devil is sick, the devil a
saint would be." In this moment of national, Hemisphere,
and world sickness, perhaps we can rise sufficiently to the
needs of these fateful times to overcome our prejudices
of the past and our outdated modes of thinking.
I should like to revert to one of my original premises
that Communism is an international conspiracy to over-
throw non-Communist governments throughout the world.
Here in this Hemisphere we can escape the Russian menace
only by the most complete integration of our sovereign
states that can be made practicable.
The old world of the sea age had some apparent
luxuries now denied us. We no longer have the luxury of
the Americas isolated by oceans, protected by the British
Navy, and illumined by the spirit of the Monroe Doctrine.
The luxury of making and hurling resounding phrases in
order to arouse the people to anger and bitterness, now no
longer may merely achieve personal or political advantage;
it may be a danger to the sovereignty of the state. The
chorus cry of "Yankee imperialism" by South American
demagogues and professional Latin American intellectual
"experts" from the north may have in the future a far more
tragic consequence than creation of international disharmony.
We can no longer permit ourselves flag-waving orgies, dis-
criminations, trade barriers, and uneconomic policies under
the name of nationalism when our urgent need is continental-









22 The Caribbean at Mid-Century
ism. In Latin America just and economic land reforms are
overdue as are tax systems that support privilege and stifle
progress. This is a late hour to kill by expropriation any
more capitalistic geese that lay golden eggs before a new
brand of golden-egged geese can be hybridized. And there
is still time to establish the rights of the laborer before
he receives the Communist kiss of death.
The integration of this Hemisphere is feasible. It is prac-
tical. It can be almost wholly accomplished through bi-
lateral treaties later to be supplemented by multilateral
treaties when desirable. Hemispheric conferences have been
tried, with only limited success. Experience has proven that
treaties, negotiated directly, represent the only effective
method.
The hope of humanity in today's bellicose world lies in
international understanding, good will, and cooperation. We
must extend the solidarity of family and community and
nation beyond our borders. We. must make a new approach
to human relations among nations. I believe that this can
be best achieved through first, building a community of in-
terests. Where can there be better ground to build this
community than in this Hemisphere, as a guiding light to
world unity?
From the northern reaches of Canada to the tip of Tierra
del Fuego, people have settled this continent to escape in-
justice and seek opportunity. They are united in spirit but
separated by artificial boundaries of a past age. Break down
these barriers so that the people of the Americas can rise
to a new level of human understanding and progress!




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